Local files from phone don't open

[Musicisok21]

• None of the below information is required. However, the more you provide the easier it will be for us to try and help.

Plan

Premium

Country

Canada

Device

Samsung Galaxy S9

Operating System

Couldn't say

My Question or Issue

Local songs simply do not show up in my Spotify. Infact the only things that shows up in my Spotify's local section is some random recording I made a few months ago and the stock "Over the Horizon".

Everything I read says you need a desktop app to use local songs but in all my years I've never used the Desktop app (nor do I want to, just over complicates things and I'd rather keep all my spotify in one place) and have been adding local songs to my Playlists simply by opening the audio files on my phone using Spotify as the default to launch them. I recently upgraded from an ancient J3 to the phone listed in my specs above, and my former way of adding downloaded audio from my device just opens the Spotify app to the local songs page, and does literally nothing. It just opens the app to that page.

Is this a new feature that mandates the Desktop app? I'd honestly rather not but if I can't have my local songs from my phone I'll have to go back to using my old phone just as an mp3 player specifically for Spotify.

[Dian]

Hey @iklemp,

Thanks for the reply.

The Local Files feature was reworked a few months ago to exclude the possibility to sync files between devices. The files must be physically present on your particular device for them to be discovered by the app.

On this page you can find a guide for iOS devices on how to get them discovered on the phone and played by the Spotify app. Let us know if you have any specific difficulties in going through those steps. Also share the troubleshooting steps you've already tried. 

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

P.S.: The thread was moved so we can keep all the relevant info on one place and can help multiple users simultaneously while having the threads neat and tidy.

[Hasnine]

I hadn't face anything like this before but recently all my Local File songs are removed and now I can't have the access to them. I've tried numerous ways but in the end after turning on the local file access it should pop up the import option but it's not popping and that's why we aren't getting anything.

So, please find us a solution ASAP. Thanks in advance.

[OscarDC]

Hey @Hasnine,

Thank you for joining the conversation.

This type of issue of not getting the option to discover your local files when turning the option up, is commonly related to some cache stored on your device. In this case, we'd first recommend performing a clean reinstall of the app by following the steps in this article. This is often an overlooked step, but it's more thorough than a quick one and can be helpful in getting rid of any cache that might be causing trouble.

After this, we'd suggest performing the Local Files discovery process again. You can find the steps for each device in this article.

If the issue persists, include in your next response the make, model and OS version of your device, along with the Spotify version you're currently running to continue investigating the case.

We'll be on the lookout.

[ftessaw]

I'm having the exact same problem as you! Can you tell me how to manually set the permissions? I have no clue how to do that.